by Tom Corcoran
The rising sun grayed the sky. I knew I’d be worthless for the day ahead. I closed my book and began a must-do list, including stashing Sam’s “king” grand and pulling my passport from the safe-deposit box. I wanted to buy a new backpack-style tote and a tripod carrying case. I needed two or three decent dinner shirts.
My brain stumbled when I attempted to prioritize the list.
She arrived in a cab a few minutes after six, in unwrinkled clothing. She walked in sober, bleary-eyed, biting her upper lip, looking defiant and guilty. She wanted to have the first word, but it wouldn’t come. All she could do was shrug, look sheepish, show me the hint of a teardrop, and disappear into the bathroom.
I waited in the rocker. My mind stayed blank out of fatigue. I sensed no inner guidance. I didn’t know whether to be patient or defiant myself. She came out wrapped in a beach towel, carrying her soap and brush.
Eye to eye, we shared a moment of silence.
I said, “This is a guy you used to work with?”
“Not exactly.”
I had phrased my question to nudge her toward the truth. I’d hoped for a different answer. It was my turn not to respond. I walked to the kitchen and began the coffee ritual that had kicked off many more pleasant mornings. I liked equal amounts of Folgers, Bustelo Cuban, and Starbucks. The blend offered flavor, kick, and geography. Just like Key West.
Teresa stood just outside the kitchen. Her defiance had returned. “Alex, if you can’t handle answers, don’t ask questions. What am I supposed to say, Whit and I have a ‘past,’ or some other word for it?”
“I could’ve stood the truth the first time through.”
“Think about your friend Buffett’s song. What is it, ‘Pre-You’ that talks about the people we used to date?”
“Date?” I said. “How about ‘boink,’ or some other useless euphemism, some other word for it?”
“I think the lyrics suggested that previous lovers were stepping-stones to where we are now.”
“How previous are we talking? I thought you majored in communications in college.”
“We are not talking, we’re arguing,” she said. “I didn’t major in fucking, if that’s what you mean.”
“No, I meant what I said. Timely info, without circular talk.”
“Your directness is not reading well. And I wasn’t fucking all night. I was talking and listening, and if we don’t drop it now, we’ll be very sorry.”
“If we drop it now, other arguments will take its place.”
“Okay, I’ll get a condo. I don’t need charity. I don’t need free rent. I make my own money.” She started for the backyard shower.
“You need some rest?”
“I’ll clean up and go to work. I’ll be fine.”
“We were going to have coffee on the porch this morning.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said. She looked at the porch, through the screens at the quiet lane. “I still want to do that. I’ve wanted to do that every morning.”
Ten minutes later, again wrapped in the beach towel, she combed out her wet hair.
I poured two cups. “Last night you thought it might be murder.”
She lifted her brush and nodded. “It’s too simple. Something’s not right.”
“But you didn’t say that to Dexter?”
“Or to anyone else, either. They’ve all got their heads set on suicide. But I swear, the vibes inside that house were way off tune.”
“When did you go in?”
“After the Herald left,” she said. “One of the commissioners wanted to console Yvonne. I went in, too, to express my sympathy.”
“Had you met Yvonne before?”
“No. And she sure wasn’t what I’d expected.”
“What was wrong?”
“She acted like she didn’t need consoling. She kept looking outside, at the officers in the mangroves, like she was afraid they were going to find something. I don’t know what, his scalp or something. I mean, how would you find anything? There’s so much crap in there, dead branches, leaves, who knows what. But that’s how she looked. Like they were bothering her, she didn’t want them to find a thing. She wanted them to go away. You were out there taking pictures, and she looked like she wanted you to leave, too. I finally decided she wanted me to go away, too.”
“So you left?”
Teresa shook her head. “I asked if she had a place to go, or someone to stay with her for a few days. I was thinking she didn’t want to hang around the scene of her husband’s bloody suicide, which I thought made sense.”
“And she said…”
“She said, ‘Hell no. This was always my house, and I’m moving back in.’”
“People grieve in different ways,” I said. “Maybe she hated the guy. Maybe she’s happy he’s gone. It doesn’t mean foul play.”
Teresa stared at me. I felt as if she were looking through my eyes, into my thoughts, to judge me the way she had judged Yvonne Gomez. “You’re a man,” she finally said. “You’re allowed to think like a man.” She took a long brush stroke through her hair. The towel fell away from her breasts, the cold air touched her nipples. She covered herself, then said, “Let me call this one, okay? It was worse than strange. She can’t move in, anyway. It’s still a crime scene, without a crime.”
“Are you going to say something to Dexter today? You want me to give you a little boost, advice on how to phrase it?”
She shook her head. “I was hoping you’d ask around, see if anybody had a problem with the man. I mean, you’ve done things in the past year or two, figured out those scams, those other murders. You’ve helped the police find some evil bastards.”
“It’s not my job to fight for truth, justice, and the American way.”
“It was when you were in the Navy,” she said.
Where had that come from? I couldn’t recall ever discussing my Navy years with Teresa. “That was my job description then,” I said. “I’m not in the service now. I’m not a cop, and I don’t have to carry the crimes of Monroe County on my back. I’m worn out from the past couple of years of getting sucked into one shit storm after another. What do cops call burnout?”
“Burnout. When nobody’s around they call it dirtbag overload.”
“I’m suffering their occupational depression, and it’s not my career. For a dead friend, like Naomi, if she had died that way, I might feel compelled to dig. I don’t know why Steve Gomez shot himself, and I don’t know if anyone else shot him. He had friends, and I wasn’t one of them. I didn’t dislike him, or anything like that. I simply didn’t know him well. If I ever drank a beer with him, it was only because he and I were in a bar at the same time. We never met to have a few. He wasn’t a tight part of my life. He was mayor of a place where I pay taxes.”
She stood and tightened the towel around her, as if now not wishing to have me see any part of her unclothed. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
So much for coffee every morning.
“Look,” I said, “just because I’m not into it doesn’t mean I won’t help. If you’ve got a hunch, turn yourself into a steel trap. Keep your eyes open and notice everything. Remember it all, but don’t write it down at work. If you want help, okay. But I’m going to be your admin assistant, not your deputy.”
Teresa didn’t loosen her grip on the towel, but her mouth twitched. “If I need help, you’re going to be in Grand Cayman. Thanks for the offer. And have a nice trip.”
She went to work, I finished the coffee, and I wondered why I had blown off her suspicions. A week earlier I would have taken them as gospel. I would have marched to Dex Hayes, embellished her argument with a theory or two of my own, and pitched evidence no matter how circumstantial. To advance my bullheaded cause, I would have challenged Dexter’s abilities as a detective and a human being. I hadn’t done any of that.
Instead, I had found fault with Teresa’s behavior of the past fifteen hours. I had ignored the stresses of her past few days
. She had vacated her condo, stored her furniture, moved her belongings to my house, and dealt with a media crush because of Steve Gomez’s position in the community. She had capped it by doing a poor job of juggling her gentleman friends. A charitable person would anticipate and forgive her neurotic impulses and views.
An objective and selfish person would ignore her.
The half gallon of straight caffeine failed me. I reclined on my bed to think out my day ahead, fell asleep, and was wakened by pounding rain. Thousands of ball peen hammers pounded my tin roof while someone slapped the yard with flat rubber paddles. There was no lightning, no thunder. Only percussion. I leaned off the mattress to look out the bedroom door. Slivers of sun shone through the living room blinds. I threw off my sheet, went to the main room, watched pouring rain form puddles and reflect sunlight. When it stopped, the humidity would skyrocket, and the air would weigh more than wet towels. Unwaxed cars and corroded tin shingles would look fresher. It would be a three-T-shirt day.
In that short nap, dreams had bounced in my head. I had been in Naomi Douglas’s bedroom only once, to help hang a framed watercolor above her headboard. I had hoped several times that she had shown me the room as a subtle invitation. I’d never acted on those hopes. In my dream a woman’s body lay in repose, in that room. Her face had been Julia Balbuena’s, a former lover who’d been murdered up the Keys two years ago. In the dream her face had been blue, as it had been when I had arrived to take photos for the sheriff at Bahia Honda. Unsuspecting and unwarned, I had recognized her corpse, had identified her to the deputies.
Not a nightmare, but the beginning of one.
I fled to my backyard shower where I searched for tokens, figments of reality. I noted the beginnings of a wasp’s nest. One more thrill for my new roomie. I found her pastel-handled shaver hung on a teak peg. I would have to inform Teresa that a razor left outside in Key West would grow hair of its own, would rust in minutes to a glistening copper-hued wedge of iron oxide. It was time for WD-40 on the door hinges. Time to clean the showerhead so its spray would go to the pits and not the eyeballs. I made mental plans to scrub the floor slats and varnish the inside of the door, and find a new soap holder …
But I couldn’t get my mind off Naomi Douglas, our ten-year friendship, the levels of our friendship.
At times I had put her on a pedestal, viewed her as a grand angel who had come to bless the island. Other times we were equals, co-conspirators, planning how my photos or some new promo approach would best benefit the cause, the charity of the moment. She possessed a liveliness, depth, a unique air, a sharp sense of business. Her cantankerous moments were few, and taken for regality. She had showed few eccentricities, though one was her unwillingness to dwell in the past. She once told me that she loved the future as a concept, but worked to live each day for itself.
Naomi always wore light cotton, never denim, and expensive walking shoes, not just sneaks. She had worn minimal, distinctive jewelry—two rings, a bracelet, a shirt pin, earrings with an artsy flair. Either her hair never grew, which I doubt, or she was careful to have it trimmed often to a length that spoke of comfort and elegance. I had come to count on the constancy of her appearance, her outlook, and her cheer.
Eight or nine years ago Naomi gave me the swelled head. My housemate then, Annie Minnette, had always pointed out her favorite photographs, had told me which ones were “good,” and which images didn’t work well. Naomi had gone beyond one-word critiques, had told me that she liked where I had placed my horizon, or the picture’s offset balance, the play of tone, the war between colors. She had urged me to take myself more seriously, or at least express myself without an amateur’s cynical mask of uncertainty. Naomi claimed to see art in my workaday photos. I still recall the exact spot where I stood, in the San Carlos Theater lobby, when she said to me, “I need to ask two favors.”
“I’ll say yes twice.”
“Don’t be so hasty. I want to buy two of your photographs.”
“The brochure’s got—”
“The brochure’s at the printer,” she had said. “It’s behind us, and thank you. But I see something in your pictures that’s higher than illustrating a darned brochure. I want two prints”—she indicated the ones she liked—“matted and framed. And signed, of course. You name the price, and don’t think for a minute that I’ll accept them for free.”
When she paid me for the two framed prints, she also gave me a book of Walker Evans’s photos from the 1930s. She ordered me to keep up my habit of taking pictures as often as possible, told me that I could become the next Walker Evans. Most of her flattery had bounced off, but her words had been pleasant to hear.
Several years ago I had helped her construct a display kiosk for a charity function, and we had gotten sweaty and dusty in the yard behind her house. We’d stopped for a break, some bottled green tea. Something about the afternoon light, or the perspiration on her upper lip, or her different look with her hair tucked behind her ears …
My gaze must have given me away.
She’d said, “You look at me like that, I wonder about your thoughts. You know that I’m broad in the beam and light of sail. I’m not shaped like your girlfriend.”
“I’ve always been a sucker for eyes and smiles.”
She had laughed. “Then you better watch yourself, buster.”
Nothing ever came of it. I suppose I didn’t want to change the nature of our friendship. She was honorable enough not to cause problems in my then-current relationship. Our social and business friendships had brought me pleasure. I had a girlfriend who made me happy.
Yet I wished I’d spent more time with her. There must have been many days when I rode my bicycle across Grinnell, past her house, and hadn’t stopped. Perhaps I had pressing appointments, or didn’t want to socialize just then. There’d always be time, I had figured. There’d always be another chance to catch up on chat, to show off new pictures, to have a quiet glass of green tea on her screened porch.
Naomi Douglas had helped other artists besides me. She had been a visionary, a volunteer, and a person who smiled more than she frowned. The world needs more like that. As of right then, it was short one and I was minus one fine friend.
I was inside shaving when the brass bell clanged. Marnie stood at the door, dressed for a day in the “home office”: running shorts, a tank top, a ball cap on backward. I waved her in, invited her to make more coffee, and finished getting dressed.
“He left at seven-thirty, driving.”
“Will the Bronco make it past Tavernier?”
“I dropped him at the airport. He reserved a car.”
“Here’s to dependable transportation,” I said. “I didn’t see you at the house last night. I was on the front porch with Sam for almost an hour.”
“Here’s to Dinner Party Sam. I wasn’t home until midnight. I was out on the dark city streets, playing journalist detective, getting the lowdown on Yvonne Gomez.”
“And?”
“Steve Gomez was brokenhearted. A friend told him that Yvonne was screwing around. Her thing was to go to motels with tourists during city commission meetings. She would turn on the TV while they did their thing. As long as the mayor was right there in his official chair, in grainy black-and-white, he never could catch her. But secrets don’t last long on this island. I guess he confronted her. She told him she wanted out of the marriage. She wasn’t after money, either, because she had her own. She didn’t care what she got, as long as she got rid of him. She moved out and rented a cottage on Love Lane, of all places. She called it her Love Shack.”
“Cold woman,” I said.
“Broke his heart. It explains a lot. Of course, somebody might argue that this constant east wind drove him crazy.”
“Why ‘Dinner Party Sam’?”
“You know how he is. He’s always got to rise to the occasion, answer the call, do the right thing. His one big flaw, living out his macho self-image. We had a dinner party going last year for people I work with
and their spouses or partners. Sam got a phone call. Captain Turk’s motor had died out by the Snipe Keys. It was a half hour before sunset, and we had eight guests sitting down to dinner. Sam didn’t think twice. He went to his boat, powered out to the Snipes, and towed Turk in. He got home, smelling of sweat and beer, just as our last guests left.”
“It’s the rule of the sea…”
“The rule of the house was that he did all the dishes. Anyway, back to last night, Sam went to bed early. This morning he woke me up before the sun came up. He was, let’s say, amorous and vigorous. So if I look like I’m walking bowlegged…”
“You look like a woman on a mission of her own.”
“As did your girlfriend yesterday afternoon. Sam said he pulled you out of dinner at Camille’s.”
“She got home after the garbage trucks,” I said.
“I guess we all learn things about our housemates.”
“Why does my life have to be this rolling sine wave of information?” I said. “It’s good news, bad news, and I’m not begging for a boring straight line…”
“She moves into your home, then doesn’t come home…”
“Last week I watched Teresa do a wonderful thing. I didn’t know she spoke French, never heard her say a word of it. She knows French as well as we know English. We were in Fausto’s, in the checkout line. This woman barged to the front feigning bewilderment, excusing herself in French and pointing to the baby she held in her arm. I assumed a diaper emergency. Teresa said something in French and the woman butted back out and went to the rear of the line. Outside on the sidewalk I asked Teresa what she’d said. She’d told the lady that her child didn’t smell like caca, but the lady’s breath smelled like beer. She told her she’d call the police on child-abuse charges if she didn’t wait her turn.”